'Cheers but does not inebriate!'
When you hear the word 'shrub' you probably think of something you'll find at your local garden centre - but no! 'Shrub' was also once a common word for a fermented, refreshing and health giving alcohol alternative.
The word has an Arabic origin, derived from 'sharab' meaning 'to drink'. In the middle east, fruit vinegar or sharab was renowned for its intense flavour - so much so that it rivaled alcoholic drinks for taste and mouthfeel, without the risk of intoxication and infringing the Quranic prohibition against innebriation.
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However, when fruit vinegar was introduced to England in the 15th century it was discovered they were a novel way to add taste and flavour to the unappealing alcoholic medicines that were the order of the day! At the time, medicines were made from scratch by apothecaries and and usually tasted pretty terrible, and there was no such thing as a 'spoonful of sugar' to make the medicine go down. However, when mixed with a shrub cordial, usually made from apple cider vinegar, the result was a tonic that could revitalise the heart, body and spirit - while also curing disease. Around the same time, (and possibly explains how it came to England in the first place) sailors discovered that as a mixer shrub could hide the rough taste of their rum rations...
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Consequently two kinds of shrubs emerged in Britain and later in early American history. One version is an alcoholic cocktail made from a fruit cordial, now regaining it's popularity. The other was an echo of it's origin, rising to fame during America's prohibition era as a strong tasting, refreshing non-alcoholic alternative. A well-known advertising slogan of the time was 'Cheers but does not inebriate!'
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Which brings us to our own double fermented and lightly sparkling, refreshing and revitalising shrub...
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We call it second press because - you guessed it - we ferment it not once but twice to get the intense flavours we know you'll love.
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Shrub can be made from many fermented fruits, but we begin with our own apple cider vinegar made from rescued apples (thank you Lees Orchard and Brady's Lookout!). As the shrub sits, wild yeast converts sugar into alcohol and CO2, while acetobacter bacteria simultaneously convert that alcohol into more vinegar, keeping the alcoholic content effectively non-existent.
Then, rather than simply infusing the shrub fruit flavour into the apple cider vinegar to create the end product, we ferment the shrub again, transforming it into a refeshing, tangy beverage with a mouthfeel that packs a punch. Along the way, yeast and bacteria consume the sugars but intensify the taste.
The result is a brightly flavored drink that will startle your taste buds into full wakefulness and quench your thirst like nobody’s business.
